The Chaco War

The Chaco War is considered to be one of the great wars in the history of Paraguay along with its war of independence. The Chaco war took place between the 1932 -1935. The war was waged to claim dominance over the Gran Chaco Region of South America as it was wrongly understood to be the rich in oil.

Possession over Gran Chaco also could have given access to the two land locked countries to the Atlantic Ocean. The discovery of the oil in the foothills of Andes, led them to believe that the land was extremely rich in oil. All these led to Chaco War (1932 -1935).Two big large companies Standard Oil supported and backed Bolivia while Shell Oil backed Paraguay. Minor battles in 1920s in the border culminated into the war in 1932. The war started on the orders of Daniel Salamanca president of Bolivia the Bolivian army attacked the garrison of Paraguay at Lake Pitiantuta. Paraguay had far lesser population but Bolivia adopted guerilla strategy of fighting.
This helped them to win battles as Bolivians adopted formal strategy of war. Paraguay received military assistance from Argentina. Another advantage that Paraguay had over Bolivia was that Paraguay could communicate through radio in Guarani language which was not comprehended by the Bolivian soldiers.

The War of Chaco brought huge loses to both the countries. About 100,000 soldiers were killed. In 1935, three quarters of the Chaco Boreal was given to Paraguay and Bolivia got only a strip of land. After few years, no oil reserve was found in Chaco.